New Northern Ireland Wallpaper

​The work consists of images of First Minister Ian Paisley and Deputy First MInister Martin McGuiness

‘Here we have the ‘chuckle brothers’ McGuiness and Paisley (pictured above), as individual portraits made up of fragments including images from the Book of Kells and a line from Bobby Sands. Even in this larger form they both look the same.

The sameness becomes ubiquitous in wallpaper endlessly repeating the two portraits in miniature, and relieved only by a picture of a bedraggled bird, and this a reference to Bobby Sands’s last diary entry, ‘Bhí na héiníní ag ceiliúradh innui / The birds were singing today’.

It was no doubt in this spirit that Atkinson celebrated our new order. Only the more sceptical of us reflect that wallpaper often covers cracks!’

Culture Northern Ireland Review by John Gray of Conrad Atkinson’s work at ‘Tears in Rain’ Exhibition at Golden Thread Gallery, Belfast, curated by Maírtin Ó Muilleoir, 2011

Copyright courtesy of the artist (representation: Ronald Feldman Fine Art NYC)